Past,Present,future
by Stripywriter37
Summary: Based on the call the midwife Christmas special 2014.About the character Avril Fox . Disclaimer:I don't own call the midwife please feel that you can review,I would love to hear your ideas about my story.
1. The start

Looking at her little smile, her little eyes and her little hands .It made me wonder, was I ever looked at with love and kindness. I was born on a cold winters evening some eighteen years previous. My mother never seemed too happy that I was around. Though I did have toys I had nobody who wanted to play with me. I would take my wooden Noah's ark and I would set it up in the living room and then when my mother came in I would ask her to play with me. She would pick me up and put me in my room. I used to go and ask her if she would come into the garden with me. She would take me to my room and tell me I was a naughty girl for disturbing her tea party with her friends. I used to ask questions but then they would be ignored or I would be given a half-hearted answer. All four year olds are inquisitive but I learnt to keep quiet to do as I was told. I learnt to tidy my room and to not bother her unless the thing I was disturbing her was to do with her. I used to walk a little way down the road to the park to lay with my friends. On the way I would see lots of families the Browns with their five children running around outside their house and the Smiths buying ice creams and going on trips to the seaside. However, I did find some friendship in adults, from Mrs Callan next door. She was about forty and had two grown up children who lived around London, she also had three children who still lived at home. Mrs Callan used to inivte her family around all the time one day they went to London zoo.

I was on the front step drawing with chalk on the pavement when Elizabeth oldest of the three children still living at home came and asked me if I wanted to go with them. I didn't bother to tell mother as she wouldn't care as long as I didn't get in her way I was as free as a bird.

One day I climbed on to the work surface and as I jumped down pulled a pan of boing water onto my arms. My mother put me in a cold bath and left me there until I had stopped screaming. I still have tiny scares to remember that day by. I went inside grabbed my old coat and some change from the tin and went on the adventure. It was a fine day we saw bears and Mr Callan even paid for us to go on the Merry go rounds and big dippers at the zoo. That was the last night I spent at home. I woke up in the morning, all mother said was to pack my best clothes in a case and we were going to the seas side. I packed my bags. When we were leaving my mother started to get inpatient and she dragged me along the pavement. I dropped my teddy but my mother wouldn let me go back but Mrs Callan was walking past on her way to the shop to by her paper. She shouted "Avril, I will save the teddy for you, when you come back you can get it."

Then the next part was all a blur, I remember my mother leaving me on the steps of a large house and leaving getting into the car. I shouted at the car as it drove away I didn't cry like most abandoned children would, I sighed a sigh of relief.

I was taken into the house. They took my belongings and showed me to a room full of lots of other children of different ages. It seemed like they were all robots there was no laughter just children boys and girls playing quietly with old toys. The bedroom was small 10 girls to a room and 10 boys to a room there were around fifty children. The children fought over the blankets and duvets as there were not enough to go round. After the matron who looked over the children the house went silent. Even the babies in the room next door didn't cry as they knew nobody would come to comfort them. I sat up in the bed that I shared with another girl about my size. Was this what life held for me? At 6am we were woken by a loud bell. The children hastily rushed around and dressed not wanted to be sent into the containment room some big children had said it was not bigger than a cupboard and you had to sit there for four hours in the dark with no water.


	2. Chores

Things started to look up as for breakfast we received a bowl of porridge, despite the fact it looked like grey wallpaper paste we could have a spoon full of brown sugar or jam. I ate mine quickly. After breakfast the children stood in groups these groups were age groups. There was the new-borns to twenty four months, twenty five months to three years then three and a half till four and five till six and then the final group seven to eleven.

The younger you were the easier the work was. The older children had to scrub the floors and iron clothes and make the food for lunch. The younger ones went into a small room and were read books. There were fourteen of us we were given pens and paper and told to write about why it is good to follow rules the older ones quickly began to attach pen to paper but I had only just turned five and had no real experience with writing or reading.

Mrs Callan next door had invited me round every Thursday she had taught me how to have proper conversations with people to ask for directions. She said all you need in life is passion and a sense of knowing where to go. She also taught me how to write my name and by the time I left I was able to read about twenty words. But I knew I could never write a sentence.

So I put my pen to paper and wrote what I could remember. The words sounded better in my head but they turned out like scribbles on the paper. When the time was up the second matron collected in our work and sent us off to clean the porch. The next day I found myself put into the group with the older children I soon discovered that if you didn't know how to read or write they would boost you up as they didn't want to waste their time .Alot of the older girls couldn't tread a write it seemed you were only taught for one year and then you were expected to work.

After I settled in it wasn't too bad I got used to two meals a day one at 7am and one at dinner were meals such as lump stew but I didn't complain as it tasted palatable. After doing chores I learnt that during the school term they put everybody in the dining hall and we had to copy letters and do maths. It took me a while but after about a year I was able to write a full paragraph and I found that maths was really easy. After that we would be able to go into the garden and play with football or skipping ropes. Then we would be sent to our rooms before dinner, all the girls would push the bed together and the older ones would tell stories. I made a lot of friends. Then we would have dinner go to bed and the day would start again.

From the age seven and up we were expected to look after the younger ones. On a Sunday when went to church we had to make sure that all the children looked smart and the girls had their hair in plaits. When new babies came we snuck into their rooms at night to comfort them as if they cried too much they would be locked in a room by themselves and many of the girls had younger brother and sisters.

Then one day the matron came up and told all the children over six to pack their bags. Just to make sure nobody pretended there were younger she read out the names. Then when we had packed our bags we were put onto buses. It was rather confusing but nobody got upset as this happened a lot.

Then we arrived at a much smaller house. The matron made us get off the bus and then she left. There was five of us we walked up to the door a woman with a hard stare showed us in and she showed us to the room we shared with twenty girls. The room had no beds just a few beds and a few blankets. The girls weren't friendly as soon as the matron lady left they pounced onto us and started to rummage through our cases. They took anything clothes, blankets, toys. But we did not want to lose our things so we fought a girl pulled my hair so I punched her it became a riot all the children we on top of each other I had gone from a home to a place that only cared about receiving money from the government. We were locked in a room and not given any meals. I spent the next seven years there. I learnt how to keep quiet.


	3. The end?

We didn't do any school work, we cleared out the stables and barns of the farm nearby. It seemed if you had no way of paying you would receive nothing. So we survived on the money we found when we were allowed into the town for 30 minutes every month. I made sure nobody ever stole though; we could do better than that. I would receive some money every few months, some of the girls would receive from their grandparents or aunts, but I didn't have any family that we were in touch. The envelope was addressed to me and I was sure that they took money and the letter was from someone with the initials AC, it was something that puzzled me for a long time. Things never seemed to look up. I was beaten many times, and I spent a lot of time doing errands. We once spent a whole week locked in the room. If someone became ill they would be taken away but they would never return and nobody would say why. Then when I was fifteen they kicked me out, I had to find a job but with minimal literacy skills I went to the local green grosses and run errands I spent the night under the bus stop or in a door way.

Then one day I hit what I thought was a stroke of luck a women approached me and said they were looking for a maid servant to clean their clothes for her family of course I had no experience but I accepted the job. I was to work six days a week with Sunday of and the pay was very much but I had a room to sleep in. Finely things started to look up. I had made a few friends and even found a boy. He was kind and loving two things I had never really experienced before I worked at the estate until a few months before my eighteenth when I discovered I was pregnant after I told him he left he didn't want anything to do with me anymore. I had to tell the women who had employed me as I would be unable to work as much. She chucked me out said she would not have disgrace brought upon her family. Nobody would help me as I was not married and had no family of my own. I moved to poplar and was able to rent a small room. I signed my self-up to the local health clinic. I heard about these places where girls could go and then when they had their babies they would be given to a family who loved them and would look after them. I didn't want to keep the baby as I was afraid I wouldn't know how to look after it.

So I went to the house. It was a horrible and unsanitary place with many secrets, but that is a whole other story. After I had the baby I had been so certain I would hand her over, but I looked into her blue eyes and my heart melted I wanted to make sure I was there for everything I wanted to be able to look after her as one day she might need me. The nurse was right there was no law saying I couldn't keep her.

I decided to go back to where I spent the first four years of my life in Camden. Mr Callan's house looked the same. I walked up to the door pushing my daughter in her pram it was a bitter cold winter's night, I knocked on the door. A little girl opened the door not much older than I was. I said

"Does Mrs Callan still live here."

"Do you mean mummy?" said the girl

" Maybe." I was rather confused

Then a man came to the door I talked with him and her said he had come to stay with his mother as she was getting old. He invited me and he took me too her room. He opened the door and when she saw me she sat up in bed and said.

"Little Avril is that you?, it I, Phillip go up to the attic and get the red trunk." Said Mrs Callan

Phillip brought the chest down, he opened it and I noticed I had all my old toys in it. Mrs Callan then explained that after my parents and left and returned without me she knew what had happened, about a month after they abandoned me they left sold the house and moved to Chester to be near my grandmother. She said that they were going to throw all my toys and clothes and pram away but she said she would take them .She hoped I would return to get them.

"Are those your toys?" Said a little girl

"Yes they are, they were my toys when I was your age." I said

"They must be very special as granny would always tell us that we were not to play with the toys as they were not ours." She said

I sat in the warmth of her house and watched the two children run around then there was a knock at the door ran and in ran five more children followed by four adults carrying bags of clothes and food.

They invited me to stay for the evening and even made me a bed upstairs. There were only three bedrooms the adults slept up stairs and the children slept by the fire on blankets.

Mrs Callan talked about her child hood it was rather like mine all most exactly the same she had been abandoned and had her first child young. However she didn't talk much about her adult hood, she didn't mention anything about her from the age of nineteen.

She had five children she introduced them to me

"These are my children Elizabeth, Percy, Fredrick, Matthew and the oldest of them all Alice." Said Mrs Callan

At the name Alice I turned to look at my daughter her face all scrunched up in sleep, she was also called Alice it was the name of my first and favourite book I had read.

"Granny, mummy and daddy have names, what is your name?" the girl

" Avril, darling, Avril." Said Mrs Callan

" Can you tell us that story about the time you went to the zoo and saw the bears." Said the girl

" Or I could tell you about Alice and her adventure in wonderland." Said Mrs Callan

I looked at her in shock. " A little birdy told me that is your favourite to Avril." Said Mrs Callan.

" Mrs Callan what did you do after you had your first daughter." I said, she had said she got married

"What age did you get married, what was your husband called, where did you meet him." Avril

" Child, you ask so many questions ,I'm afraid I cannot tell you everything as you need to discover it for yourself." Said Mrs Callan

I was rather confused; she was speaking as if she was me, as if I was living her life. When I left the next day I was still very confused.

I moved away and rented a little flat, and I started a children's day care and children's club at the local church hall. It was very popular and I was able to be around children all day and I also made money during the weekends or when the children had holidays.

As for marriage it took a while but I married and had four more children, well that's another story. I discovered that no matter where you are even if you feel alone there is always somebody who is there for you even if they are not near.


End file.
